Shirley Cruz to Star in 'The She-Devil,' a 1990s Rio Coming-of-Age Adaptation from Capivara Movies
Shirley Cruz is set to star in The She-Devil, a feature film now in development from directors Clara Ferrer and Tainá Bevilacqua, adapting the autofiction novel by Eli Lemos de Oliveira (Variety).
The film is set in the 1990s and follows Araí, an 11-year-old trans boy growing up in a working-class Rio de Janeiro community, who develops an obsession with an imaginary killer attacking girls in his neighbourhood. Cruz plays Aunt Iara (Tia Iara), with Ferrer on screenplay duties. Amina Sophia Nogueira will executive produce for Capivara Movies, an independent Rio de Janeiro-based company founded in 2024 by Laura Fazoli, who serves as producer. Retrato Filmes is attached as the Brazilian distributor (Variety).
Bevilacqua wanted to adapt Oliveira's book from the first time she read it, and the author agreed. She and Ferrer first worked together in 2018, when Bevilacqua starred in Ferrer's debut short film A Casa de Ana. Ferrer has since directed several shorts, and her first feature as a screenwriter, Four Girls, premiered earlier this year at the Berlinale (Variety).
Cruz arrives at the project on the heels of an acclaimed performance in Anna Muylaert's The Best Mother in the World, which premiered in the 75th Berlinale in 2025 (Berlinale). In that film she plays Gal, a mother whose own safety and her children's future are at risk; the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth described the work as a study of maternal resilience anchored by Cruz's resolute performance (Hopkins Center for the Arts). Seu Jorge also stars.
A short film set in the same universe, The Death of the She-Devil, is currently in post-production. It was made in partnership with Cajamanga and Dobra, with Cruz reprising her role as Aunt Iara and Ferrer again writing. The short is intended to precede the feature as a companion piece, though neither has a release date yet (Variety).
Nogueira spoke to Variety from the Locarno Film Festival, where she was taking part in Match Me!, the festival's networking programme for emerging and mid-career producers — a sign that Capivara Movies, barely a year old, is using the festival circuit to build the international relationships that independent features need to reach screens beyond their home market (Variety).
For now, the pieces are in formation: a book that moved its director on first reading, a star whose Berlinale turn drew notice, a young production company building its first major title, and a short film that will arrive before the feature to introduce audiences to the world of Aunt Iara.
